The police in Phoenix, Arizona will soon ask all people arrested whether they are in the United States legally and will in certain cases report the information to the federal authorities, Mayor Phil Gordon announced on Friday. People stopped for civil traffic violations, and crime victims and witnesses, wi;; not be questioned about their immigration status under the new policy. Those arrested on criminal charges will be asked by officers whether they are in the United States legally. The police may decide to recommend checking by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Who might the police recommend for further checking? Regulations are being drafted on this and other aspects of the policy.

The N.Y. Times quotes Antonio D. Bustamante, a member of Los Abogados, a Hispanic legal group in Phoenix, who said the policy changed “only because of xenophobia” and people “who hate the undocumented without understanding the huge contribution they make to the city and the economy.” For the full N.Y. Times story about these developments, click here.

The debate over state anti-immigrant proposals has reached Utah, where LDS church leaders are chiming in on the debate:

Matthew D. LaPlante writes in the Salt Lake Tribune:

A prominent leader from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has implored Utah's overwhelmingly Mormon Legislature to "slow down, step back and carefully study and assess the implications and human costs involved" in a slew of immigration bills they are considering on Capitol Hill. Marlin Jensen, a member of the LDS Church's Quorum of Seventy, told a modest crowd at the Wednesday evening opening reception of Westminster College's "Beyond Borders and Fronteras" colloquy that "with decisions hanging in the balance that have such significant consequences, I believe a more thoughtful . . . not to mention humane, approach is warranted." Immigration has emerged as a key issue during the legislative session that began Jan. 21, with lawmakers considering a litany of bills that would limit significant privileges and impose extensive penalties for the state's undocumented immigrants. But, Jensen said, "immigration questions are questions dealing with God's children," and legislators should "measure twice before they cut." His comments expounded publicly on the private pleas of church leaders last month for Legislators to act with compassion as they consider immigration reform. Click here for the full story.

A federal judge threw out a long-running lawsuit under the federal racateering statute (RICO) claiming that Tyson Foods, Inc., the world's largest meat producer, hired undocumented immigrants to depress wages. U.S. District Judge Curtis L. Collier in an order Wednesday granted the Arkansas-based company's motion for a summary judgment. For a story on the ruling, click here. For a copy of the ruling, click Download trollinger20213081.txt

The U.S. invasion of Iraq has led to many travesties, including the displacement of millions of Iraqi nationals who have had to flee the region. CNN reports on recent efforts of the UNHCR on behalf of those refugees:

Some 2 million Iraqis have fled their country, most seeking refuge in Syria and Jordan, and another 2.4 million have been displaced inside Iraq, according to the United Nations.

The head of the U.N. refugee agency is on the road this week in the Middle East, trying to drum up more world support for a people in "desperate" straits.

Antonio Guterres, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, traveled Tuesday to Jordan, where he met with King Abdullah II and thanked him for hosting the displaced. He also met with refugees and government ministers.

Guterres traveled to Syria on Thursday to meet with refugees, aid workers and officials.

Ron Redmond, Guterres' spokesman, said Guterres had been in the region about a year ago and returned to review programs addressing public health, food, shelter, education assistance and refugee resettlement in Syria and Jordan. Click here for the rest of the story.

Diane von Fürstenberg (b. December 31, 1946, Belgium) is a fashion designer best known for her hallmark wrap dress. She studied economics at the University of Geneva in Switzerland and, at the university, met Prince Egon of Fürstenberg, the elder son of a German prince. The couple married in 1969 and divorced three years later. Diane became Princess Diane of Fürstenberg.

In 2002, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen. In 1970, Fürstenberg began designing women's clothes. She is best known for introducing the knitted jersey "wrap dress" in 1973. Fürstenberg has started a number of successful businesses including a line of cosmetics and has ventured into the home-shopping business, which she started in 1991. In 1985 she moved to Paris, France where she founded Salvy, a French-language publishing house. From her design and marketing studio in a 19th-century carriage house in West Greenwich Village in New York City, she produces a line of high-end women's apparel.

In 2005, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) awarded Fürstenberg a lifetime achievement award. In 2006, she was named president of the CFDA. In 1998 she published her memoirs, "Diane: A Signature Life".

Here is the preliminary schedule, hotel and registration information for the upcoming Immigration Law Teachers Workshop in Miami. Download RegistrationMiamiWorkshopPrelimSche.pdf As the attachment explains, you have several ways to register: on-line through a secure system at , or email, or fax, or old-fashioned mail. Everyone who registers by April 1 will receive a free copy of Asylum Denied by David Ngaruri Kenney and Phil Schrag, which will be discussed in one of the teaching breakout sessions.

As we reported a while back, John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone. Is he eligible to be President?

Section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution provides that “ No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States. ” (emphasis added). McCain is past 35 but is he a "natural born Citizen"?

Three major candidates have sought the Presidency who were born outside the United States: Barry Goldwater (1964) was born in Arizona while it was still a U.S. territory, George (Mitt's Dad) Romney (1968) was born in Mexico to U.S. parents, and now John McCain (2000, 2008. The Panama Canal Zone, where McCain was born, was under United States sovereignty between 1903 and 1979. McCain is the presumptive 2008 Republican nominee for President.

In 1790, Congress passed the Immigration and Naturalization Act, which gave citizenship to children born overseas — but only when the father was a U.S. citizen. In 1934, it was extended to include the children of mothers who were American citizens. But whether people born in those circumstances can serve as president has never been set in legal concrete because it has never been challenged, according to Dean Alex Aleinikoff (Georgetown). "The Constitution does not say you have to be born in the United States, so there is room to decide what 'natural born' means, but the informal interpretation that we all accept has never been tested," he said. "Clearly, though, Article 3 of the Constitution indicates anybody who is naturalized is not natural born, and this is a ridiculous provision," he said in an interview.

Any thoughts? For an interesting politcal analysis finding McCain to be eligible to be President, click here and here. Charles Gordon has a great 1968 article outlining the relevant issues, which were then (as now) hot given the candidacy of Michigan Governor George Romney (born to U.S. citizen parents in Mexico) for President. Download gordon_article

Illuminating the dark side of economic globalization, this book gives a rare insider's view of the migrant farmworkers' binational circuit that stretches from the west central Mexico countryside to central California. Over the course of ten years, Ann Aurelia López conducted a series of intimate interviews with farmworkers and their families along the migrant circuit. She deftly weaves their voices together with up-to-date research to portray a world hidden from most Americans--a world of inescapable poverty that has worsened considerably since NAFTA was implemented in 1994. In fact, today it has become nearly impossible for rural communities in Mexico to continue to farm the land sustainably, leaving few survival options except the perilous border crossing to the United States. The Farmworkers' Journey brings together for the first time the many facets of this issue into a comprehensive and accessible narrative: how corporate agribusiness operates, how binational institutions and laws promote the subjugation of Mexican farmworkers, how migration affects family life, how genetically modified corn strains pouring into Mexico from the United States are affecting farmers, how migrants face exploitation from employers, and more. A must-read for all Americans, The Farmworkers' Journey traces the human consequences of our policy decisions.

Dr. Ann López is currently a Research Associate with the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems at UCSC. She completed a University of California Office of the President post-doc in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley in 2006. She is an emeritus professor at San José City College and has taught courses in biology, environmental science, ecology and botany in the biology department for many years. Her research addresses the human side of the binational migration circuit from the subsistence and small producer farms of west central Mexico to employment in California’s corporate agribusiness. She is currently completing the paperwork for the establishment of a non-profit organization, designed to benefit farmworkers and their family members on farms in Mexico, the Center for Farmworker Families.___________________________________________________________________

These seminars are open to all members of the UCSD community, as well as faculty and students from other universities and the general public. For directions to CCIS, visit our website. Parking permits can be purchased at the information booth on North Point Drive (north end of campus). Visitors may also use metered parking spaces (max. 2 hours) in the North side parking lot. Papers previously presented at CCIS seminars can also be downloaded from our website under “Working Papers.” For further information, please contact Ana Minvielle (E-mail: aminvielle@ucsd.edu, Tel#: 858-822-4447).

On a visit to the United States, Mexican President Felipe Calderon was in Sacramento yesterday. He acknowledged tensions between the United States and Mexico over undocumented immigration, but he stressed that both countries have an interest in ensuring their citizens can cross the border legally and safely. Calderon spoke Wednesday morning to a joint session of the California Legislature. The visit is his first to California since being elected president last year. He said the economies of the two countries are interdependent and, for that reason, there must be shared responsibility for immigration on both sides of the border. Calderon said Mexican and Mexican-American workers are a big reason for California's dynamic economy.

According to Ruben Navarette, President Calderon has been "getting flak [in Mexico] for not being vocal enough in protesting what many Mexicans see as the harsh and unfair treatment of their sons and daughters in the United States."

Check out His Panic: Why Americans Fear Hispanics in the U.S. by Geraldo Rivera. In this book, journalist Geraldo Rivera examines the growth of the Hispanic population in the U.S., fueled partly by immigration. Rivera sheds light on undocumented immigration, an issue that is too often blamed for everything from terrorism to welfare abuse. Examining the past as well as the quest of others for that dream, Rivera seeks to place the issue of undocumented immigration in a historic context, dispelling the myth that we are facing an unprecedented crisis. Geraldo Rivera Introduces the new book by video here.

Fugitive Landscapes The Forgotten History of the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands by Samuel Truett (Yale University Press) was selected as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2007 by Choice Magazine. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Mexicans and Americans joined together to transform the U.S.–Mexico borderlands into a crossroads of modern economic development. This book reveals the forgotten story of their ambitious dreams and their ultimate failure to control this fugitive terrain. Focusing on a mining region that spilled across the Arizona–Sonora border, this book shows how entrepreneurs, corporations, and statesmen tried to domesticate nature and society within a transnational context. Efforts to tame a “wild” frontier were stymied by labor struggles, social conflict, and revolution. Fugitive Landscapes explores the making and unmaking of the U.S.–Mexico border, telling how ordinary people resisted the domination of empires, nations, and corporations to shape transnational history on their own terms. The author, Samuel Truett, is associate professor in the Department of History at the University of New Mexico.

Hedy Lamarr (1913–2000) was an Austrian-born American actress. Lamarr was born as Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, Austria. She studied ballet and piano and played major roles in German movies. She ultimately changed her name to Hedy Lamarr, choosing the surname in homage to a famously beautiful film star of the silent era, Barbara LaMarr.

In Hollywood, Lamarr was usually cast as glamorous and seductive. Her American debut was in Algiers (1938). Her many films include White Cargo (1942), and Tortilla Flat (1942). In 1941 she was cast alongside two other Hollywood beauties, Lana Turner and Judy Garland in the musical extravaganza Ziegfeld Girl. Lamarr's biggest success came as Delilah in Cecil B. DeMille's Samson and Delilah.

Lamarr became a naturalized citizen of the United States on April 10, 1953. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Hedy Lamarr has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6247 Hollywood Blvd. In 1967, she published her autbiography Ecstasy and Me.

Another human rights trial concludes for the Center for Justice and Accountability:

Dear Friends of CJA,

[On Tuesday], we completed a trial on damages in Miami against former Peruvian Major Telmo Hurtado for his role in the infamous Accomarca Massacre. Twenty three years after the events of that terrible day, Teófila Ochoa Lizarbe and Cirila Pulida Baldéon had an opportunity to confront one of the perpetrators and tell their story in a U.S. court.

Ms. Ochoa Lizarbe and Ms. Pulida Baldéon, who were both twelve at the time, survived by hiding while 69 members of their village, including their family members, were tortured and murdered. Major Hurtado, who commanded one of the army units responsible for the massacre, came to the U.S in 2002 after the amnesty law in Peru preventing his prosecution was repealed.

Hurtado is currently in immigration detention and defaulted in the case. Nonetheless, we successfully sought leave of court to require Hurtado to appear so our clients would be able to confront him. U.S. Marshals brought Hurtado to court in prison garb and shackles. While Hurtado ultimately refused to participate in the proceeding, the clients felt that a measure of accountability was accomplished by his presence.

Please join me in congratulating our clients, expert witnesses former Peruvian Senator Javier Diez Canseco and Eduardo Gonzalez of the International Center for Transitional Justice, Ana Deutsch of the Program for Victims of Torture, and all the others who came together to make the trial an important step forward in the movement for justice and accountability. We expect Judge Adalberto Jordan to issue a decision awarding damages in the near future.

Below are highlights from the trial.

For our friends in the Miami area, CJA is co-hosting a panel discussion on the case and accountability efforts in Peru on Wednesday, February 13th, 7:30 p.m. at the University of Miami School of Law, 1311 Miller Drive, Coral Gables. Almudena Bernabeu, Hon. Javier Diez Canseco and Eduardo Gonzalez will be panelists. More information available here.

For more information on these important cases, please see the press release in English and Spanish or visit our website, www.cja.org.

All the best,

Pamela MerchantExecutive Director

P.S.: CJA relies on contributions from individuals like you to continue our work. Thanks to the generosity of the JEHT Foundation, each new dollar donated to CJA will be matched. Please consider making a donation today. http://www.cja.org/donate/donate.shtml______________________________________________Highlights from the Trial

After the trial, Teófila Ochoa Lizarbe said, "When the man who murdered my family was sitting in the courtroom, I felt anger. But mostly, I wanted him to look at me so that I could ask him, 'Why? Why?' Yes, I feel proud of what we have done here today. I feel like being here was really worth it. This experience has given me strength and courage to continue the struggle for justice back home in Peru. I feel loved by all the supporters here with us today, our lawyers, the other witnesses and friends."

Cirila Pulido Baldéon said, "Traveling all this way and testifying in court has been like a dream. We could never have done this without such a great group of lawyers. We are so happy to have had this opportunity for justice."

On the stand, Ms. Ochoa Lizarbe testified about the family members that she lost, "With my mother we were like friends, like sisters. She was a beautiful mother. My little brother Gerardo, who was 10, and I used to go pick fruit, he would always save the best piece of fruit for my mother. Victor, who was 8, he was a precious and good boy. Ernestina, 7, was very chubby but had a strong voice and was always happy. She was a beautiful, marvelous girl. Celestino, who was 3, already had a lot of character, but he was very good at sharing. Edwin was less than one year old. He was very beautiful. The last time I saw him he was on my mother's back and she was waving to me."

Ms. Pulido Baldéon testified, "Your honor, everything that we have said here is the truth. We have lived with this pain. I want to see Hurtado deported back to Peru so that he has to answer for the crimes that he committed. We have spent our whole lives traumatized in this nightmare since it happened. That's why I am here. I want the world to know the truth."

Eduardo Gonzalez, one of the authors of the Truth Commission Report, and an expert in transitional justice, testified, "I believe that this defendant, Mr. Hurtado, represents not just this one person, but a terrible strategy that the government used to terrorize a population. The massacre was a result of a plan from the highest levels of the military command in the Ayacucho region with the objective being to 'search and destroy' the enemy. When asked if every civilian should be considered a terrorist criminal, Mr. Hurtado answered 'yes.' Hurtado represents the arrogance of the military who thought that they could operate in complete impunity."

Former Senator Javier Diez Canseco, who interrogated Hurtado in the months after the massacre as a part of the Senate Investigation Commission, testified, "Hurtado assumed responsibility for the killings. He said he had proceeded with his orders to 'capture and destroy' the enemy. When I asked him about the women, children and elderly that were killed, he said that 'the children were all indoctrinated and that women were the cruelest members of the Shining Path.' He said that they were all so full of ideology that there was no use in trying to change their minds, and if they did not have information useful to the military, it was within his discretion to 'eliminate' them. I was shocked by these admissions. Hurtado showed no remorse."

For an interesting blog entry on Ballot Box summarizing polling results from republican primaryt voters on immigration, click here. Among Republicans, in every state at least a plurality favor the "deport" undocumented immigrants. However, in only a few states does that position win an outright majority.

Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) joined with Representative John Conyers (D-MI) in co-signing a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, expressing their concern over a recent decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) that appears to reverse U.S. policy regarding the protection of women subjected to severe human rights abuses such as female genital mutilation (“FGM”) and forced marriage. The BIA denied the asylum claim of a woman who had suffered FGM as a child and who feared that she would be subjected to a forced marriage if returned to her native Mali. "This recent action taken by the Board of Immigration Appeals is a step backward for the rights of women worldwide," said Conyers. "America's standing as a global leader for human rights and democratic principles is undermined by this decision. Attorney General Mukasey should review this case and give thoughtful consideration to why asylum is properly granted to victims of this horrible abuse.” “I’m deeply distressed that the Board of Immigration Appeals would deny this woman’s claim for asylum,” noted Rep. Zoe Lofgren. “Female Genital Mutilation is a gross violation of a woman’s human rights and has traditionally been grounds for the granting of an asylum claim. I hope that Attorney General Mukasey will see the troubling implications of this terrible ruling and certify the case for further review.”

Indiana is one of the more recent states debating questionable anti-immigrant legislation.Dan McFeely writes in the Indianapolis Star:

A state Senate bill cracking down on illegal immigration will begin its journey through the Indiana House on Wednesday.

Gov. Mitch Daniels has remained neutral, though he has said that Indiana needs to "move carefully here and make sure you don't do injury to the economy or to law-abiding people."SB 335 would penalize employers for hiring illegal immigrants, make it illegal to harbor an illegal immigrant (with some exceptions for health-care providers, religious organizations and family members) and require the Indiana State Police to begin working with federal authorities to develop a process by which local police can be trained to enforce federal immigration laws.Under the funding amendment, the State Police would get a one-time $1 million appropriation to prepare for their task of working with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws. And the attorney general, which would be asked to investigate violations of the new law, would get $500,000."I think this is a positive step in the right direction," said state Sen. Mike Delph, R-Carmel, who authored the bill and has been championing its cause for several weeks. Click here for the full story.

We have just updated one of the most popular pages of our website : the Human Rights Short Courses page. http://www.humanrightstools.org/shortcourses.htm It now features more than 60 short courses and summer schools spanning 2008 and 2009, from the general introductions to very specialized courses on indigenous peoples, discrimination, women’s rights, and more. So be sure to visit and bookmark this page if you are planning to stimulate your neurons and synapses this year. Its always a good idea to take our nose off the grindstone for a couple of weeks to broaden our horizons, deepen our knowledge, make some new friends and have a good time too! A big thanks to Idowu Ajibade, from Nigeria, who did all the hard work of updating this page. She has just joined HRT’s small team of dedicated volunteers. More about her below: http://humanrightstools.org/about.htm

We have done our best to make it as exhaustive as possible, but if there is something to add or change, let us know by writing to us at editors@humanrightstools.org.

Some very interesting courses we would like to highlight:

1. CLOSING SOON: Monitoring economic, social and cultural rights The Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies in Geneva (IHEID), in cooperation with HURIDOCS, is organizing a new course on monitoring and documenting economic, social and cultural rights. It will take place in Geneve, 5 – 9 May 2008. This exciting and much-needed course will be timed to match the second week of the ESC Committee, so you should be able to attend both with the same plane ticket! There are still a few slots for paying participants, but you must apply before 3 March 2008. http://www.huridocs.org/training/escr

2. CLOSING SOON: Video advocacy course The Video Advocacy Institute, the first of its kind, is an innovative program that trains human rights defenders to successfully integrate video advocacy into their social change campaigns. When: July 19 – August 2 2008, in Montreal, Canada. Application deadline is 2 March 2008. http://www.witness.org/vai

3. CLOSING SOON: Transitional justice francophone Rabat fellowship program Transitional justice refers to a range of approaches that societies undertake to reckon with legacies of widespread or systematic human rights abuse as they move from a period of violent conflict or oppression towards peace and democracy. The International Center for Transitional Justice’s francophone Rabat fellowship program will be running from May 2nd to the 25th. It runs for 10 weeks and ICTJ takes in charge the full cost of participation of each participant (including the visa and airfare). Application deadline is 25 February 2008. http://www.ictj.org/en/workshops/fellowships/ottawa/index.html

4. Justice sector reform, Human rights fieldwork IHRN is organizing two courses. The first is entitled “Justice Sector Reform: Applying Human Rights Based Approaches” will take place at the National University of Ireland, in Maynooth. The dates are from 16 to 20 June 2008, and the application deadline is 2 May 2008. http://www.ihrnetwork.org/new-justice-sector-reform.htm The second IHRN course is entitled “Human Rights Fieldwork - Principles, Strategies and Skills” will be held in the same location, from 26 October to 2 November 2008. http://www.ihrnetwork.org/hr-fieldwork.htm

As usual, please forward this to your friends and colleagues who share your interest in human rights, or post it to your blog and mailing lists. If you have received this from a friend and would like to subscribe, you can do so here: http://www.humanrightstools.org/newsletter.htm

And when you come back from all this training, enthusiastic and inspired, why not tell us about it and send us a couple of photos of those special moments? We love to hear from our readers, write to us at editors@humanrightstools.org Best regards, and good luck in your efforts to defend or raise awareness about human rights. Daniel D’Esposito, Editor Human Rights Tools editors@humanrightstools.org

When millions marched for the rights of immigrants in the streets of major cities throughout the United States in the spring of 2006, only two U.S. Senators marched with them: Edward Kennedy and Barack Obama. Before the California primary, Maria Elena Durazo of the AFL-CIO highlighted this fact at East Los Angeles City College in introducing Senator Kennedy who was campaigning for Senator Obama. A video of her introduction can be found here.